Students' Attitudes to Using Audiobooks (Survey)

This article focuses on the role of audiobooks in the reading practices of students. Possible risks and benefits of audiobook use are explored. Data from a survey are presented to determine attitudes toward audiobook use. Emphasis is placed on cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of attitude. The study set out to investigate under what conditions participants would prefer to use audiobooks; what motivates the choice of a particular audiobook; to what extent participants identify their experience of reading paper as the same/different from listening to audiobooks; and what texts are preferred to listen to when working with audiobooks. An additional aim of the study was to find out whether there was a difference between students' and non-students' attitudes to using audiobooks. The survey involved 27 students from language schools in Sofia and 32 students from ”St. Kliment Ohridski University”. The findings show that: listening to audiobooks is combined with performing everyday routine activities; the attitude to listening to audiobooks does not differ significantly between students and high school students; listening to audiobooks in order to prepare for exams is becoming more common practice in both high school and college students; the presence of metacognitive learning strategies (note-taking while listening) in order to improve comprehension is observed in students to a higher degree compared to high school students.